Prison Experiment

In 1971, there was extreme experiment conducted in Stanford that placed 24 undergraduate students to play the roles of both prisoners and guards in a mock-prison. In a 2-week trail random students were chosen to be test subjects, in return they got $15 per day. This simulated prison included three six by nine foot prison cells which held three prisoners each and three cots, also other rooms were utilized for the prison guards and warden. For more extreme measures one small space was designated as the solitary confinement room, there also was a prison yard. All of these small rooms created a mock-prison in which the students were observed.

Originally the experiment was supposed to be slated to last fourteen days, but it was stopped after six days due to acts of violence, stress, and anxiety. There were no general rules as to how the prisoner or the guards were to act. But within the few days that the experiment started interactions between the guards and prisoners became extreme. The guards were starting to become more and more hostile with each passing day. They did dehumanizing things like stripping prisoners naked, using the fire extinguisher, or beating them. While the prisoners started to become more and more negative with each passing days, they also became more violent. Causing rebellions or fighting against the guards was just the beginning for them. Not only were the guards and prisoners losing sight of reality but so were the researchers. None of them wanted to stop the experiment; rather they overlooked it and continued to go with it. Later on Philip Zimbardo wrote in his book The Lucifer Effect, "Only a few people were able to resist the situational temptations to yield to power and dominance while maintaining some semblance of morality and decency; obviously I was not among that noble class,", giving the quick change of scenery and amount of power few people were able to control it and use it...

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...﻿Andrew McClarren
12/1/12
Stanford Prison Study Paper
The Stanford Prison Study was a very eye opening experiment because it was performed in 1971, before modern American Psychological Association guidelines were implemented. As young adults we’ve never seen anything like this experiment before. The power of this situation was exceptionally strong, especially to us. In the study, how easily normal students could be transformed into either a satanic guard or a submissive prisoner was astonishing. Some horrific things happened to the prisoners because of the power that the guards had over them. They assumed the identity of their issued number, were forced to be naked and sleep on concrete and were kept up all night. It seemed that just putting on the uniform of an authority or an inmate affected their personality directly, influencing their behavior. “I really thought that I was incapable of this kind of behavior… while I was doing it I didn’t feel any regret, I didn’t feel any guilt. It was only until afterwards when I began to reflect on what I had done that this behavior had began to dawn on me…” said a guard from the experiment. This recount of his actions speaks about the human mind. I don’t believe that this experiment could make people show traits that they don’t actually have. The abuse of authority is a quality that had to be present in the mock guards of this...

...﻿Stanford Prison Study (SPE), Zimbardo carried out, an experiment. This experiment had 24 final participants. The guards’ task was to humiliate the prisoners and make the prisoners feel powerless. The result of this experiment was that the guards identified themselves as the in-group and the prisoners as the out-group.
In SPE, the participants signed consent to be part of the study. The participants were debriefed and offered money at the end of the experiment. The researches were carrying out an overt observation in Stanford experiment. Overt observation means that the participants know that they are being observed. When the researchers realized that the experiment is turning sexual they closed down their experiment. The study was meant to last two weeks. But the brutality of the Guards and the suffering of the Prisoners was so intense that it had to be terminated after only six days.
However, SPE explains that the behavior shown by the guards was influenced because of the power of the situation. Also, the prisoners followed the commands. Few said that they want to go home and living their makes them sick, but the researchers were so much into this that they did not realize the pain of the participants.
The study done by zimbardo shows that the power of the situation the guards were in and not because they were evil. The power of situation is...

...﻿Running head: Stanford PrisonExperiment
The Ethics of Zimbardos Stanford PrisonExperiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures may seem quite unethical, due to
the fact it reveals unwelcome truths about human nature, although consensus shows that most
participants and the general public agree that it is ethical. The experiment “The Stanford PrisonExperiment” is just as ethical because the men signed consent forms knowing what was going to/could
happen. The participants were allowed to leave at any given time if need be, and the American
Psychological Association approved of the evaluation. Therefore, the Stanford PrisonExperiment would
be considered ethical.
Seventy different men signed up for this psychological experience for fifteen dollars a day. Every
man that volunteered for the Philip Zimbardo’s (psychology professor) experiment knew what was going
to happen through the two week period. Essentially, there ended up being three guards and nine
prisoners and the men were screened for psychological normality. Each volunteers consent form
included an acknowledgement of the nature which the research project would involve (Dr.Zimbardo,
1971). The volunteers specifically agreed; in the consent form by Dr.Zimbardo, to the...

...The Stanford Prisonexperiment, in my opinion is a remarkable experiment . It isn’t ethical in the least but the results that have emerged have exceeded even what Mr.Zimbardo set out to do.
The aim of seeing whether people change their basic personalities , moralities , values when subjected to an external hostile environment has been successfully proven. My honest opinion is that , at that time in 1971 , it was rational enough to think about going out of the way to get an answer to a particular question . If Mr.Zimbardo were to conduct this experiment in modern day 2012 , it would have never left the drawing board. The acceptance of the public to such an experiment played a large part in it being so famous (right and wrong reasons). At that time many psychologists were on the “trend” of human experimentation , for eg – with the Milgram experiment and so on. It seemed fair enough to plot out the Stanford PrisonExperiment. The brief of the entire experiment was pretty straightforward .
There were going to be people who were going to be Prisoners and Guards. These people were not approached , they came to Mr.Zimbardo in response to his advertisement in the newspaper along with a fee of $15 a day.
The experiment was expected to last for 14 days and the behavior of the guards and the prisoners was to be observed. Mr.Zimbardo himself...

...THE STANFORD PRISONEXPERIMENT
One of the most interesting studies made in history was led by Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist and a former classmate of Stanley Milgram (who was famous for his Milgram experiment). He sought to expand on Milgram’s experiment about impacts of situational variables on human behavior by simulating a prison environment, in which volunteering students were randomly assigned as prisoners or prison guards. Many controversies have been elicited from this experiment, and it was with a documentary of the experiment that Martyn Shuttleworth based off his article about the Stanford PrisonExperiment.
In 1971, Zimbardo started an experiment that would question the ethic morality of the science-sphere forever. "Only a few people were able to resist the situational temptations to yield to power and dominance while maintaining some semblance of morality and decency; obviously I was not among that noble class," Zimbardo later wrote in his book The Lucifer Effect. Without graduate student Christina Maslach’s voiced objections to the conditions in the simulated prison and the morality of continuing the experiment, there would have been a high probability that conditions would have worsened even more than it already had - the guards would have progressively increased their abusive...

...﻿
The Stanford PrisonExperiment
Following the American Psychological Associations guidelines
Zachary Hudson
Waterford District High School
Abstract
The Stanford prisonexperiment, an unethical experiment created to study human nature in the most hellish of environments. Regular students were deceived into applying for the experiment itself and later regretted the choice because of the events that occurred during the short time that experiment ran in. The experiment ran and quickly became more than expected by the research team; prisoners became children, guards became sadistic monsters and hell itself happened. The connection between reality and role-playing quickly happened as guards and prisoners alike assumed their roles in the simulated prison life. Peer pressure played a major role in the experiment for it showed that within the conditions it could control and manipulate people into doing terrible things to themselves or others. Prison culture was defined and learned through this experiment, most of the information gained was shocking and appalling but was necessary for learning about prison in a way no human being could other than experiencing it for themselves. This experiment was very unethical and could’ve been conducted in a safer way...

...Ethics and the Stanford PrisonExperiment
In 1971 Philipp Zimbardo carried out one of the most ethically controversial psychological experiment the ‘Stanford PrisonExperiment’. Originally he aimed to study how much our behavior is structured by the social role we occupy. Describing the study briefly 24 undergraduates with no criminal and psychological record were chosen for the research to play the roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of Stanford University Psychology Building, equipped by hidden cameras and microphones. As the lead researcher, Zimbardo was observing the events from a different room, giving instructions to the guards. The research was supposed to last about two weeks. However, aggressive and violent behavior quickly appeared on the behalf of the group playing the role of the guards, while prisoners became depressed and passive. Ultimately some of the prisoners were subject to torture. Since the participants assimilated with their role rapidly and provided surprising psychological outcome, Dr Zimbardo shot down the research after 5 days. The experiment meant to demonstrate the power of authority, support of the situational attribution of behavior rather than the dispositional attribution. For forty years it was criticized as well as argued when it came to the relation of ethics and psychology. If it would be carried...

...Stanford PrisonExperiment: Ethical or not?
Chase Clark
University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Abstract
The research conducted in this paper consists of solely the Stanford PrisonExperiment, which was originally conducted by the social psychologist, Phillip G. Zimbardo. This experiment replicated a real prison that took students to participate in it. Students role-played the prisoners themselves, and prison guards. It was conducted in the basement of the psychology department on the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California. The experiment turned into an ethical conflict with Zimbardo himself, and society. Cruel behavior coming from the guards dehumanized the prisoners themselves, generally creating a terrible scene to watch. This experiment was mainly conducted to illustrate the cognitive dissonance theory. Prisoners started to become insane and uncomfortable with the mistreatments, causing the unethical experiment to shut down earlier than planned. Why did the prisoners end up acting the way they did? How did the guards feel with that kind of authority over humans? Why didn’t it get shut down even earlier? There is something about this experiment that created such an ethical misunderstanding that forced it to be shut down early. This research will answer all of these questions and more as to what...